The Evolution of Christs and Christianities (Hardcover, illustrated edition)

ideology rather than promulgating an authentic history of people and social groups. 2) A woman, wrote the earliest layer of the canonical gospel tales. She was probably named Mary and may have been a daughter of a Jewish High Priest. 3) Most of the words of Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke were originally from texts about John, the Nazarene Prophet, A.K.A. John, the Baptist. 4) Important features of the characters of Jesus and the Apostle Peter came from a Samaritan magician called Simon Magus. 5) The major Christian group in Jerusalem in the first century was The Church of God. This institution was associated with James the Just and opposed by Paul the Tarsan. It apparently made its money by training slaves in obedience for widows. It looked towards Joshua (Jesus) of Nun for salvation as opposed to the laws of Moses and, like Paul, it knew nothing of any Jesus from Nazareth Taken together, these hypotheses suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was not a real historical person. He was primarily a complex literary creation. He was a combination of various texts about Joshua of Nun, John, the Nazarene Prophet, James the Just, Simon Magus and various other literary characters. However some of these earlier characters may have been loosely based on, or intended to refer to, various historical persons who lived in the first half of the First century. < /b>